A Marxist Coup (Not the good kind)

On the fringes of downtown Oakland, close enough to the freeway, my window when its open in the afternoon, more often weekdays, provides a steady soundtrack of traffic, the sounds of people moving along, usually one constant, dissonant noise like a gravelly river flowing outward, right on by. Most times, there isn't one noise separated from another. Unless there's a big block engine there somewhere, or a Harley rustles by or maybe a big rig, a tow truck, but more than likely I don't notice a thing unless I'm looking outside.
What I notice more than anything, is when someone is blaring tunes with their windows down, bumping bass vibrating the walls sometimes, a guitar solo now and then, or Top 40 whathaveyou, they pass and then they're gone. Most of the time, they are faceless and only leave a trace of exhaust. But once in awhile, there is a distinction. A Peach colored Buick Regal on 20s blasting "Cutie Pie" by One Way or maybe a rusted Dodge Colt taking it to the limit with Van Halen's "Right Now" through stock speakers from 1991, proudly and sadly on a horribly consistent classic rock station. So the songs move by fast, sometimes stopping at a red light on the corner, allowing me to jam out or laugh my face off, as in the latter example, for an elongated moment or two.

Yesterday, late afternoon rush, lots of cars and trucks going home, after some Mac Dre caused me to pause and momentarily tolerate life, something else came along to assault rather than caress my brain. It was louder than anything else on the street. It was stopped at the light before I could configure who it was or why.
Richard Marx, not Groucho or Karl, the one I don't like so much, with his sappy shitsong from decades back, still staining the airwaves, probably on an easy listening station, "For a smooth ride home, here is a classic..."
I felt like it went on longer than necessary, a lingering red light or maybe they were trying to fucking park, while blasting, "Wherever you go, whatever you do, I will be right here waiting for you..." You may remember this song from a recent dentist visit or perhaps some memory of being in a car with a lame, white relative in 1989. It was so loud and so goddamn strange, completely overpowering the music I had on at a low volume, I had to take a look out the window and see who this motherfucker was. For a slight moment I hesitated my generalization, my blind hatred at a stranger, after all bad music is funny sometimes, right?
Fucking wrong. Not only is that rotting cheese unacceptable in any capacity but sure as shit, the culprit was right there waiting for me, a Prius and a ponytail were involved and I just had to shake my head and throw up a middle finger, trying to laugh, trying not to puke, I think I won the battle because it ended up being kind of funny. The light changed finally and the dickhead moved along, as did Richard Marx.

And I didn't feel bad at all about blind hatred or anything else. I went back to listening to Sabbath, turning it up now as loud as it could go. No more invasions today, I thought. I listened to "Snowblind" and lit up a blunt. And kept that window open for the rest of the day.